Mayan Apocalypse, SOS Edition!
by Netherwood
Summary: You all know the world was supposed to end on December 21st, 2012 because the Mayans said so, right? Of course it's nonsense, but that doesn't stop our fearless Brigade Leader from throwing a massive party for it. I guess I can't complain about good food and good company, and it's not like Haruhi would take the opportunity to cause trouble, right? ...oh, who am I kidding? Incoming!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I was working on this in the week leading up to the big day, and hoped to post it on the 21st itself. I didn't finish the story in time, so I'm posting the first chapter here to embarrass myself into finishing it._

_Disclaimer: Neither Haruhi Suzumiya nor the Mayans belong to me. I'm just playing, and I'll put them back where I found them when I'm done._

* * *

**Mayan Apocalypse, SOS Edition!**

**by Netherwood**

* * *

Just awhile ago, there was a certain day. Most people barely noticed it; a few were hunkering down in their basements surrounded by cans of beans. After the day came and went and no apocalypse materialized, most people thought nothing at all happened that day, but only because they weren't in the right place at that so exquisitely wrong time. The adventure was… confusing, honestly, and not my best showing. I mostly spent the whole time bumping off metaphorical walls, wondering what in the world was going on. The rest of my friends in the SOS Brigade probably made a better showing than myself, but when has that not been the case? Anyway, here's how it went.

Outside Yuki's apartment, the drifting cascade of snowflakes to the earth catches the streetlamps and car headlights, making regions of glowing warmth in the darkness of night. Inside Yuki's apartment, the chatter of conversation between Itsuki, Mikuru, and Haruhi blends harmoniously with the scent of tortilla chips, salsa, and fresh hot chocolate. Yuki has set down her book for the time being, and has volunteered to watch the taco mix on the stove to give Mikuru a chance to come sit down with her friends. What is this, a Christmas celebration with the wrong cuisine? Perhaps a New Years Eve party a week and a half too early? Indeed not. Gather round and hang your heads in sadness, friends, for it is the night of December 20th, 2012, and the SOS Brigade has gathered to solemnly greet the end of the world.

"Hey, Kyon!" Haruhi calls to me from across the room. "You made sure to buy plenty of noisemakers and party poppers, right?"

Solemn. Yes, that is the word I'm looking for. And of course I made sure we're fully stocked.

"Good! We need plenty of go around for the entire set of holidays!" She turns around and glomps happily onto Mikuru. In a marked contrast from years ago, it really is a simple hug instead of something that could double as a submission hold, and Mikuru actually smiles and returns the hug. "After all, we're going to party as much as we can while the prodigal college student is back for winter break! Tonight, the world ends in a blaze of glory! Then, we have Christmas in a few days, and we haven't even started putting that together! After all that, we'll be hard pressed to come up with something fresh for New Year's Eve. Hmm, my parents will be out for New Year's, but I might have to ask Yuki about using her place again for Christmas... Her turn watching the taco mix is up, too! I'll swap out for her." With that, the indefatigable leader of the SOS Brigade, current senior at Kitago High School, and somewhat more recently, the girlfriend of a certain lowly-ranked Brigade member, dashes into the kitchen.

And yes, as I listen for it, I hear the familiar crow of "Yuki!" as Haruhi glomps onto her, too. Now, I don't want you to think that Haruhi hasn't calmed down at all in the past few years, because she most definitely has. She's really come a long way from the volatile, self-absorbed girl who built her own club by kidnapping whoever she felt like taking—quite literally, in Mikuru's case. It's just that getting the entire Brigade together for a celebration brings out the warmest and most energetic side of her. And why shouldn't it? Everyone in the Brigade still does occasional lip service to our original duty of finding supernatural events, but this sort of thing is what we really look forward to.

Itsuki makes his way over to the window and, incidentally, to me. "Enjoying the view, Kyon?" He waves to the snowfall beyond the balcony window. "I believe a poet once asked whether the world would end in fire or ice. It seems we have an answer."

Well, if we're going to be facetious, I'll have to agree that ice is the better option. Far less terrifying. If we're going to be serious, though, please tell me you're not actually expecting anything to go wrong tonight? I thought you said there hasn't been so much as a single incident of closed space in almost six months.

"Oh, I certainly hope there won't be any problems. To be honest, even though I'm supposed to be the vigilant watchman, it's been quite some time since I actually feared Haruhi being unstable enough to toss out the world altogether. As for closed space... well, she does still create such spaces on occasion, but it's been six months since a celestial manifested in one of them, and that actually dissipated on its own before we espers even got to it. She doesn't really seem unhappy enough to need their services anymore."

That's something I could expect just from looking at Haruhi herself these days, but it's welcome to hear it from her subconsciously-appointed cleanup crew, as well.

Itsuki looks away from me slightly, instead tracing Yuki as she emerges from the kitchen to set a plate of tortilla shells and a bowl of shredded lettuce on the kotatsu before she sits next to Mikuru and picks up a cup of hot chocolate. They make quite a sight, our resident lavender-haired alien sipping hot chocolate while the chestnut-haired time traveler makes wide eyes as she goes through a bowl of chips and salsa like she's never tasted such a food before. Actually, come to think of it, maybe she hasn't—it's not a terribly common food in Japan, after all, and who knows what she eats back home.

Eventually, Itsuki continues. "Honestly, if there's anything I'm worried about tonight, it's that Haruhi, without actually wanting the world to end, might dwell on the topic too much and make such a thing happen by accident anyway. This Mayan prediction of the world's end is, well, it's the sort of flashy event she would have wanted several years ago. She was doing a lot of research into the topic while planning the party, wasn't she?"

I did see her with a few books, but I can't honestly be worried that Haruhi's going to do anything to the world. Trust me, right now her mind is on friends and food, whatever the theme of the party itself. If there is any danger tonight, I'll be more worried that some force other than Haruhi might try to end the world. The idea that the world could end just because a long-dead civilization said so ought to be patently ridiculous. When I take into account some of the things we've dealt with over the years, though, I'm not willing to discount that the Mayans saw something or other.

Yuki set down her hot chocolate and looked across the room to Itsuki and myself, preparing to cut into the conversation. Yuki's a little more forthcoming than she used to be; a few years around friends and with Haruhi's example, I suppose. She let her hair grow a few more inches over the years too, and I frequently spot her slowly writing in a small notebook. The changes suit her well. When she speaks, her voice is clear and direct, but still with her usual softness. "The Mayan civilization did not predict the end of the world on this date."

Wait, what?

"The Mayan calendar system, like the current calendar system in use throughout most of the modern world, is organized into various divisions of differing length. Tomorrow, the 21st December 2012, only marks the ending of one division and the beginning of the next. The closest parallel to the modern calendar system would be the change from one millennium or century to the next. Further, the division ending tonight, known in current scholarship as a b'ak'tun or a Long Count, is the thirteenth complete Long Count since the Mayan mythological date of the creation of humanity. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the fourteenth Long Count. The Mayan civilization made no prophecies regarding an apocalypse event on this date." Yuki picks up her hot chocolate again and takes a sip, now that the nonsense has been conclusively settled. If I had to describe her demeanor, I'd call it self-satisfied.

"I'm a little confused." Mikuru stops munching at her chips long enough to come into the conversation herself. There's no "um" or "e...excuse me!" prefacing her interruption, either; she still has a long way to go before she becomes the confident, commanding woman I remember from meeting her older self, but she's not making bad progress. "How did the Mayans get into this, anyway? And if the Mayans didn't predict anything like the end of the world, where did the idea come from? I kept double-checking my history references, but they kept saying the primary Mayan civilization has been gone for a long time, with descendants mostly remaining in Central America? How did that turn into a doomsday prophecy?"

Yuki's lips curl ever-so-slightly downward, and her gaze has the slightest hint of ice. "The idea originates in blatant disregard for proper interpretation of data." I have a mental image of Yuki, holding Asakura's knife, very seriously lecturing the originator of this rumor on the merits of proper scholarship.

I suddenly feel very silly that even some small part of my mind was taking the notion of doomsday seriously. In fact, I—hey, wait a minute, why didn't Itsuki already know the doomsday prophecy was just a misinterpretation?

"Heh, well, full disclosure compels me to admit that the only reading I did about the Mayan apocalypse date was the topic dossier my superiors sent me. Since they're primarily interested in what Haruhi might do about an idea, I suppose it makes sense that they'd focus on what is commonly believed and commonly available, rather than what the actual archaeological facts might be."

Personally, that seems to be underestimating Haruhi's tenacity. If she's really interested, I'm sure she'll dig through whatever information she can find, whether it's public rumor or specialized scholarship.

Asahina stares off into space for a moment, an action I've come to associate with her manipulating her augmented reality interface or conferring with her contacts in the future. "That... can't be right." She's muttering, almost to herself. "Oh, converting dates between calendars is no fun at all. Give me a moment, please... um, carry the epoch... Wait, that, that can't be!"

When Mikuru started addressing us once again, her face had paled. "When I traveled down into this time frame, I started using the local calendar, so I didn't really notice where we fit in the overall time line, but... according to the standardized calendars we use in my home time frame, tomorrow is the beginning of the seventh era of human civilization, and it starts with something called the... the Mayan Apocalypse Event."

Now, I think you'll understand perfectly when I say that Mikuru's announcement was greeted with a few seconds of stunned silence.

"What... what do you mean, the 'Mayan Apocalypse Event'?" It was Koizumi whose mouth finally started functioning first. I was too busy gaping.

"I don't know! I'm sorry, but everything about the event is classified! Even to me! It's not that I can't talk about it, the information is above my clearance level. I... I don't even remember learning about this in history classes." Mikuru put a hand up to her head, and her eyes unfocused again for a moment. "The only information I'm getting is... an order to file detailed reports later? That doesn't make any sense!"

"Hey everyone!" We collectively jumped—except Yuki, of course—as Haruhi's head stuck out from the entrance to the kitchen. "The taco stuff is done! Kyon, come help me bring the rest out?"

As I make my way to the kitchen, I have to take a moment to reflect on these hurried little conferences regarding the supernatural the four of us have when Haruhi's not in the room. They've gotten fewer and fewer as the years went by, or the ones centering around Haruhi have, anyway. There's still the occasional weirdness from other sources drawn to her that we need to take care of, such as wandering data entities or rogue time travelers bending the timeline into knots, but I'm perfectly happy to help clean those up when I can. As for Haruhi's powers, though, the SOS Brigade has had to go behind her back less and less, simply because she wasn't making problems. The last time we needed to go on some outrageous adventure while keeping Haruhi completely in the dark was well before the two of us started dating. I... really only agreed to dating because I had this feeling that running around like this wouldn't be necessary again. But if Nagato says there's actually nothing apocalypse-y about the Mayans, then what cause for a "Mayan Apocalypse Event" is there other than Haruhi?

Whatever damage control we're about to run off to do, I can't feel virtuous about doing it behind Haruhi's back anymore. Especially when this was supposed to be just a party about friends hanging out together.

"Man, Kyon, what's gotten into you? You look torn up over something." Haruhi watches me from where she's moving a mix of ground hamburger and taco sauce from a frying pan into a bowl.

I was... just thinking something over. Was it that obvious?

"I've been putting up with your apathetic face for two and a half years, Kyon, I think I can tell when you're preoccupied with something weird! Here, slice some olives into this bowl and grate some more cheese, will you? Now, where did we stick the sour cream..." I grab the knife and start working while Haruhi digs through Yuki's fridge. Having her head buried in an appliance doesn't stop her from talking to me, of course. "If it's something you need help on, don't forget you can always talk to me! I'm willing to listen to anything you want to say. My title as Brigade Chief would be reason enough, of course, but it's not like I'm going to leave my boyfriend helpless. And when you're ready to go to deal with the problem directly, just forge ahead with everything you've got. Oh, here it is." She straightens up and bumps the fridge door closed with her hips, bearing aloft the prize.

She slides up next to me to put a kiss on my cheek, then picks up the bowl of taco mix in her free hand. "Anyway, I'm sure it'll be fine, Kyon. Trust me on this one! And bring the cheese and olives out as soon as you're done so we can let's get dinner started." And with that, she heads back into the living room.

She's probably right, even if she doesn't know what's going on. While "Apocalypse Event" does sound like something to be anxious about, we have an esper, a time-traveler, an alien, and—most implacable of all—Haruhi herself. We'll handle it, right?

I can't help but check my cell phone clock anyway. It's not quite 11:30 PM. Haruhi decided that our party needed to go at least 'til midnight to welcome the end of the world properly.

OoOoO

How do we get through that next half hour? With many worried glances between the conspirators, with checking the time every thirty seconds, with an inability to enjoy these taco-burrito-things we're trying to eat. What are they, anyway? The hamburger mix is technically called taco filling, but we're using soft tortilla shells wrapped like a burrito after add on the cheese, cream cheese, olives, salsa, refried beans, shredded lettuce, and whatever else we feel like. Is this really authentic Mayan cuisine? Somewhere, an anthropologist is weeping. I will say one thing for having a party before everything goes south: warm food is a reassuring distraction even when you can't enjoy it properly.

Oddly enough, though, it's only Mikuru, Itsuki, and myself who seem tense. Haruhi, of course, is oblivious to the coming danger, but Yuki... even after two and a half years studying the miniscule changes in face and posture that give away her moods, I don't pretend to a perfect Yuki-reader, but she seems just fine. She spends most of the half-hour reading the book she has in her left hand while somehow managing to nibble at her taco-burritos one-handed without dribbling the filling all over her plate. Even if I'd never seen her perform a single miraculous world-warping feat, her consummate skill at eating these messy things would be enough to mark her as a higher order of being.

"Seriously, what is _with_ you people? Is Kyon's fugue somehow contagious?" Haruhi swoops down out of nowhere and latches onto my arm. "You're all jittery and spacing out! You people do remember what a party is supposed to be, right? You should all follow Yuki's example and enjoy yourselves more! Besides, it's almost midnight. We need to get up and get ready to usher in the end of the world! Kyon, the party poppers! Out to the balcony, so we don't get confetti all over Yuki's apartment! And after midnight, we can go set off fireworks from the roof!"

With Haruhi tugging at my arm, I manage to get back on my feet and start passing out the poppers and other noisemaking widgets. Haruhi wants us on our feet for the apocalypse, so the SOS Brigade lines up in the outside chill, arms-reach away from the sheet of snow, and holds our armaments as Haruhi checks the time on her cell phone.

Apparently, she also has a speech in mind, because she steps out of line and faces us. "I'll make this short and sweet. Everyone, I'm proud of every last one of you, not just as the commander of the SOS Brigade, but as your friend Haruhi! We've had some amazing adventures over the years and found even more amazing, impossible things than I dreamed of. The Mayans may be ending the world for us tonight, but just remember, every ending is a new beginning, too! The sun will still rise tomorrow, and we'll find all sorts of new adventures waiting. Now, weapons at the ready, and let's have everyone do a countdown!" She checks her phone one last time, waits a few breathes, and then starts counting downward from "Ten!"

"Nine!"

The rest of the Brigade manages to come in on "Eight!" Itsuki keeps his easy, grinning mask in place, sounding relaxed even though I can see the hint of strain at his eyes.

"S-seven!" Mikuru is showing her anxiety a little more obviously, shoulders hunched and a hint of her old stammer creeping back into her voice. She holds her popper firmly, though. Now that I think about it, isn't having a big countdown like this just about the most nerve-wracking way to approach a potential crisis?

"Six!" Even Yuki is chanting along with us, monotone though she is. Her eyes catch the reflection of snow as she keeps her gaze trained on Haruhi.

"Five!" I... my stomach is ready to drop to the apartment's ground floor. Yes, having a deliberate countdown definitely doesn't help matters at all. But... even if this is making me anxious, I can't be honestly frightened, for some reason.

"Four!" Some reason, of course, being the wide, energetic grin of the girl thrusting her glowing cell phone into the air with one arm as she leads our chant.

"Three!" Haruhi. I don't know what you have planned. I never seem to know that. Even though I've come to understand your hopes and fears and habits and cute faces and angry scowls, you always seem to delight in having one more ace hidden up your sleeve.

"Two!" And yet, I don't mind. And I'll follow you through all of it.

"One!"

Small popping explosions echo off the balcony walls, then strings of confetti go flying into the night. The weather muffles the sound almost immediately, and the bits of confetti that don't land on the floor disappear over the balcony and into the night.

For just a second, everything is quite.

Then the fist of an angry god strikes the world.

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OoOoO


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: Neither Haruhi Suzumiya nor the Mayans belong to me. I'm just playing, and I'll put them back where I found them when I'm done._

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**Mayan Apocalypse, SOS Edition!**

**by Netherwood**

Chapter 2

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We all feel it as the world shakes, and when I say the world, I don't mean the ground, I mean the _world_—everything, the earth, Yuki's apartment, my own body, the very air itself seems to heave back and forth, pulled by some force I can't fathom. It's coming from... everywhere, from my very bones. We all lose our footing, of course, and end up sprawled across the balcony, Mikuru and I both shouting as we go down. Even Haruhi, with her unreasonable athletic prowess, is simply a ragdoll. As for myself, I'm very thankful Yuki's balcony has a railing, because now my side and shoulder are sore where I collided with it, but at least I'm not pitching over the edge.

After the first blow, the shaking lessens to a constant tremor instead of seemingly divine wrath. The shaking still seems wrong, different than an earthquake, originating everywhere, like even the air itself is vibrating against me with physical force, but it lets me struggle to my feet. To my left, Yuki and Haruhi help Mikuru to her feet; to my right, Itsuki braces himself against the wall.

"What was that?" Haruhi is the one shouting, naturally. "That… that wasn't an earthquake!"

Of course, it isn't done yet. Yuki lifts her arm and points silently. Itsuki nods sagely and says, "Yes, I'd definitely suppose earthquakes don't do that."

The rest of us follow Yuki's finger and raise our eyes to the sky. A purple glow seeps through the cloak of snow—it reminds me of an aurora borealis, vibrantly rich and distant, but there's no way the northern lights would be this far south, or even visible through such thick weather. It's hard to tell what it is or exactly where it's coming from—the snow's scattering the light, for one thing—but it's definitely huge, stretching almost from the horizon in the distance to where our sight is cut off overhead by the rooftop. And, as we watch, the glow begins to pulse and throb—slowly, but regularly. The tremors pushing against us from the air and the ground beneath our feet spike again to match its rhythm, and I'm reminded of nothing more than a heartbeat.

We stand there, struck dumb by the immensity. Even Haruhi makes some sort of strangled noise, unsure how to act. What is this thing? The only thing I've ever even heard of that might be so vast is the Data Overmind, but would we even be able to see a non-physical... thing? It can't be.

I feel a tug at my sleeve, and turn around to find that Yuki has moved up behind me, and even she has her feet planted wide apart for support. "Remaining exposed to this light is inadvisable."

Yuki! Do you know what this is? Please tell me the world is about to make sense again.

She shakes her head minutely. "This phenomenon is too vast for my senses to encompass. I cannot be certain of its identity without much more analysis. Also, the nature of the light being emitted," and she stops for a moment while the rumbling of a tremor drowns her out, "so far as I can observe it, does not match any phenomenon in my libraries nor any I have perused."

Itsuki clears his throat, darting the barest glance toward Haruhi, and Mikuru looks troubled. Itsuki must be warning Yuki to not start talking like an alien artificial intelligence. Yuki didn't actually say anything incriminating, though, she only said that she can't wrap her head around it and hasn't ever seen or read about anything else like it before. She did say it like a Vulcan, but we're all used to that anyway.

But, Yuki doesn't recognize this sky-spanning heartbeat made of light? That doesn't fill me with confidence. It's far more worrying than anything Haruhi might pick out from the way Yuki said it.

"Well of _course_ you don't recognize it!" Haruhi, naturally, talking to the much calmer Yuki. "Come on, I think someone would have noticed if this thing exploded out of nowhere before! But why do you think the light's bad?"

Yuki hesitated. It's hard to say "My magical alien senses told me so" to our Brigade chief without either coming off as a joke or, worse, being taken seriously. "The light... may have... excessively high radiation content detrimental to health."

...I'm sorry Yuki, but that was just terrible. I ought to be glad you tried to warn us about extra sunburns instead of saying the radiation might give us superpowers, though. Really, even Haruhi looks disappointed at that explanation, like she was expecting a much better story.

She opens her mouth to argue, but then an aftershock rumbles through, almost as powerful as the first, sending us all staggering again. It was perfectly timed to a swell in the pulsing light. Our Commander takes one more look up at the light, face tight with worry. "Back into Yuki's apartment, everyone. Get out of this stuff!"

The lights have gone out in Yuki's apartment, and probably the entire city, or even the world. I can't help but remember the strange emptiness of Closed Space, the apparent lack of electricity and population, the way the blue-gray light permeated everything without coming from anywhere. Although, this light is definitely different. When Yuki reaches out to snap closed the curtains over the balcony exit, we're left in complete darkness except where the weird cosmic purple seeps around the gaps between the curtain and the wall.

Our cell phones have lost service, but the light of their displays shows us that the kitchen and the meal on the kotatsu are a complete mess, dishes sideways and food spilled. It's lucky that Yuki's apartment is so bare, otherwise the damage would be worse. Or maybe we'd be better off with more furniture? There's nowhere to take shelter, no tables to crouch under but the kotatsu. Haruhi frees that up by tugging the covering blanket into a ball, then throwing the whole mess into a corner. No one really tries to get under it, though. Which two people would we decide to protect?

Well, Yuki and Mikuru, of course. The Captain and the gentlemen go down with the ship, Haruhi would insist on that and I can't say I disagree, never mind that Yuki needs the least protection of all of us.

Instead, Haruhi sits at the now-bare kotatsu, elbows planted on the surface and hands over her head, and we follow suit, staring at each other as we wait for the next tremor.

"We... seem to be in a predicament." Thanks, Itsuki. Couldn't have guessed that.

"Alright people, _what in the world was that_?" Haruhi looks around at us. "Do _any_ of you know what this is?"

Itsuki shrugs. "I think I'm as lost as everyone." Mikuru's face tightens when Haruhi turns to her, but she just shakes her head. Yuki, already having said her piece about comic-book radiation, remains impassive.

Haruhi turns to me. "Kyon! I want to hear what you think about this!"

What do I think? If Yuki says we ought to stay out of it, then we ought to stay out of it. Beyond that, who knows? I'm not ready to go out there and argue with the big freaky light in the sky.

Haruhi scowls. "Come on people, we can't just sit here! We need to..." The expected tremor cuts in, sending us grabbing for each other to steady ourselves. The vibration seems muted, though, and the dishes in the kitchen and the blanket in the corner don't do much more than rattle. Is there some sort of data protection over Yuki's apartment? Come to think of it, shouldn't that first wave have shattered the glass in the windows? This may be the safest place in all Japan right now. "...we need to figure out something! We could... we could start going door-to-door in the complex, see if anyone else knows anything. Yuki, do you still have that telescope from the summer? We could set it up through the curtain and hold a paper to the end to see if the focused purple light leaves... a mark, or a burn, or anything. We could at least find a flash light, for crying out loud!" Ah, detective mode, with a side order of getting things done. I really do like seeing Haruhi like this.

"Maybe we should just wait for a little bit?" Mikuru. "If the earthquakes caused damage, it might not be safe to go out yet, and... they haven't really stopped yet, I think? The first one was really pretty strong. We're supposed to stay in one place until they pass. Maybe trying to get a radio and waiting would be best? Um, except for maybe seeing if there's anything else loose that we can secure. We should make Yuki's apartment a little safer."

That wasn't going to work, of course. Haruhi's face is... well, the only thing that comes to mind is _outrage_. "Oi, I am _not_ just going to sit here huddled in the dark in the middle of the first ever obviously and blatantly supernatural thing I've ever had happen to me, especially when it's big enough to nom the entire freaking sky!"

A beat of silence. "I don't think we can conclusively say this is anything supernatural," Itsuki cuts in, trying to look easygoing. "There are all sorts of solar phenomena which..."

"Are you _daft_?" Haruhi practically shouts it at him. I could have told you that wouldn't work, and just trying to clamp down on it this blatantly will only goad her even more. I'll leave that part to Itsuki, then. "Aurora borealis doesn't come out of freaking nowhere like that, and it doesn't come with its own earthquakes, and you can be damn sure it doesn't come at the stroke of midnight on Apocalypse Eve! Something is going on here!"

Despite our limits on time, despite being in the middle of an ongoing earthquake, despite the thread of the building coming down on us at any minute, despite the even more overwhelming certainty in Haruhi's voice, Itsuki actually looks ready to don the mask of the skeptical voice of reason, or what would be the voice of reason if the world actually worked according to sanity, and sit and argue with her like a soldier prepared to die for his flag.

Of course, they both shut up when Mikuru leans forward and says, "Wait... did anyone see where Yuki went? She's not here!" And we look around. Missing your Yuki in the middle of this sort of thing is... hmm.

You know what? I bet she just didn't see any use in watching Haruhi and Itsuki sit and argue, so she didn't hang around for it. Yeah, that's it. Certainly. Or maybe she's gone to make tea? She always plays the automatic dutiful host, following whatever subroutines her libraries tell her are appropriate for the social situation. So she's just making tea, right?

Haruhi takes one look at me and does exactly what I want to. "Yuki! Can you hear me?" Haruhi's voice, despite her projecting with a vitality surely envied by the theater and choir clubs, is swallowed up in by the dark, empty apartment. "Where are you?"

Two or three heartbeats stretch on for an hour or so, and then, "Here." I can hear her from... at least one room away. Has she ever talked this loud before? Surely not.

"Where 'here'? Come on, get back in here, we're waiting on you, Yuki!"

"...you should come."

"Why?" A pause unanswered. "Yuki? Where are you?"

No response. What is there to do after that? I nudge Haruhi and nod toward the sound of Yuki's voice, telling her my opinion. So, moving slowly in a vain hope of keeping our balance in case the background rattling turns into another spike of aftershocks, we head into the dark with only a foot or so of light from our cell phones and Yuki's voice to guide us through unfamiliar halls.

Now, I know I am in the house of my friend. I've spent enough afternoons and evenings sprawled out at Yuki's kotatsu during impromptu SOS Brigade home meetings, so I don't feel precisely _nervous_ about moving into the bare, hollow hall without being able to see our way. Still, I don't remember the apartment being quite so large. Maybe it's because we're moving so slowly? Or maybe, at least during whatever disaster we're in the middle of, this house is getting larger? Haruhi and I are in the lead, swinging our cell phone lights around, trying to cover every angle of approach at once.

Then, a glint of light from the darkness—two holes in the middle of the shadows, impassively watching us. Eyes! But... Yuki's eyes, just catching the light of our phones. Her face emerges, her body—still half swallowed in the gloom like some gargoyle, but just Yuki. I let out a breath.

"How'd you get here without light?" Haruhi demands. "Don't go wandering off at a time like this!"

Yuki blinks and, as she so often does, decides that responding to that wouldn't be productive, and so finds something more important to say. "These were not present before." With a tiny inclination of her head, she draws our eyes to the darkness behind her. We push the light farther, and find the wall. No, not wall anymore. Two doors, perfectly innocuous. They look exactly as though they belong with the rest of the apartment's decor, minimalistic and beige.

Haruhi grabs Yuki's shoulders and leans in, intent, like the whole world has stepped into the room with us. "W…what do you mean they weren't there before?"

I can feel Itsuki quietly panicking at my back; Yuki, nonplussed at Haruhi's attention, blinks slowly. "These doors were not built into this house upon construction," she says, her voice still calm and steady. "As of an hour ago, this wall had no doors. I have never seen these doors before. The origin of these doors remains unknown to me. It is possible, though very unlikely, that skilled and efficient workmen entered my domicile and installed them without my permission."

...have I mentioned that a few years with Haruhi seems to have made Yuki occasionally prone to a bit of snarkiness?

Yuki's speech sinks into us all for a long silent moment, Haruhi looking deep into Yuki's face for signs of a joke. Then a squeal of excitement and a joyful laugh bursts from our fearless leader, and Haruhi literally sweeps Yuki off her feet by grabbing her in a hug and spinning her around so suddenly I've got to jump back to avoid swinging legs. "We are going in there!" Haruhi crows like nothing better has ever happened to her. "We are _so_ going in there!"

"Yuki, this seems like a rather poor joke to play on—" Itsuki begins.

"Oh, don't you even start!" Haruhi glares as she cuts him off and sets Yuki down.

"We don't know what's…"

"Of _course_ we don't know what's down there!" It bursts out with a frustrated shout, and Haruhi's hands clench into fists. "Isn't that the whole point?"

This was… well, it was seeing a shambling monstrosity that was supposedly long since dead suddenly kick the door down. Itsuki, pale-faced and wide-eyed, can't think of how to respond. Haruhi herself keeps putting daggers through him with her eyes, ready to shout down the least sign of resistance. Maybe we're being a little too jumpy. Everyone's entitled to a bit of temper now and then, after all. But with the heat in her eyes and the lioness she's suddenly become, I can't help but think of Haruhi when we first met, when she was ready to fight anyone and everyone to get her way. I put a light hand on her shoulder.

She starts at the touch, then draws a long, shuddering breath. "Look at it like this," she says, fixing Itsuki with a look that isn't quite sullen enough to be a glare. "If we really don't know what's going on here, then we need to find out, right? Otherwise we can't do anything about it. We might be in danger, and we're just sitting here waiting for giant space mutant mosquitoes or whatever to come eat us. We don't even know if we need to run, or which way. Hoping someone else comes along and takes care of it's no good, either. If you can give me a reason to wait that's better than just being afraid because it _might_ be dangerous, then I'll listen. Otherwise… we're here, we're it, mystery doors are taunting me, and I'm going down there."

The doors rattle on their hinges, as does the rest of the building; we all instinctively throw our hands to the walls. When the aftershock passes—though, can we really call it an aftershock? I assume that purple light's still out there, and even if they're not all as strong as the first, there's still a continual rhythm to these things. They're not dying down, and they're not just echoes of the first earthquake. When the latest tremor passes, Itsuki still wars with himself for a worryingly long moment.

What can he do, though? He can make up some increasingly-scrutinized web of lies, or he can tell the truth that must not be told, or he can step aside. He just shakes his head.

Haruhi lets a little smile cross her face, almost secret, then turns around to the doors. "All right, then! Right here and now, let the history of the SOS Brigade be made! In the ashes of the old world, a new dawn rises! And the door we'll open first is eeny, meeny, miney, oh look, this one has a lock on it."

And yes, in the dim light I can see the glinting of an old-fashioned metal padlock, the sort that doesn't come loose for anything short of a sledgehammer. I'm pretty sure most padlocks aren't made of what looks like burnished gold like this one is, though. Isn't that all sorts of impractical? Isn't gold too soft for such a sturdy lock? Wait, the bigger issue is that door looked pretty plain a minute ago, where did the lock come from?

Well, whatever. If there's one thing that dealing with the supernatural has taught me, it's that nothing really needs to make sense around here.

"You know, it kinda ticks me off to see this thing locked." Haruhi's giving the door a level glare. "This is Yuki's house, after all! If you're going to go installing extra doors when no one's looking, you should at least have the decency to give the owner of the apartment the key! Er, you don't have the key, do you, Yuki?" Our host shook her head. "Yeah, didn't think so. Alright! Later, we storm the gates and teach manners to whoever locked this thing! But for now..." Haruhi pushes the unlocked door open; it slides away to reveal a staircase delving down into the shadows.

Haruhi was first down the steps, and Yuki drifted along right beside her. Before I could follow, Itsuki snagged my sleeve. "May I ask what in the world you think you're doing?" I'd like to say he hissed the last half of that sentence—the sentiment and sharpness was certainly there—but, unfortunately, there weren't actually any S-noises to be hissed. And, by the way, I thought I was going down a flight of stairs.

"You know what I mean! This is dangerous, Kyon. If she finds out too much, who knows what will happen?"

That's absolutely true. Who can know? But, I turn the question back to you, Itsuki. What do you think _you're_ doing?

"I am _trying_ to keep Haruhi from becoming too deeply involved and learning too much about the nature of…" He jabbed a hand out toward the room we'd been eating in, where the purple light was presumably still oozing around the curtains. "…_whatever_ our current predicament is, and going down doors that weren't there an hour ago is never a good way to stay blissfully unaware!"

And the best way to achieve blissful unawareness for all involved is… trying to beat down every mention of supernatural things? Insisting we stay put covering our heads until the world looks normal again? I can't really see Haruhi accepting any of that, especially if it's constantly thrown in her face. How does the line go—methinks the esper doth protest too much.

Itsuki gives me an unimpressed stare almost worthy of a certain resident snarker. "That's not what that line actually means. And if I am protesting too much, it's because this is a situation which _must not_ go out of control. Surely you know what's at stake—"

Once again, we actually don't, because we still don't know what the light is. We still need to do something about that. Why are you fixating on keeping Haruhi blind? That thing is doing… whatever… to the world. Apocalypse, remember? It seems shortsighted.

"Shortsighted? You think _this _is shortsighted? Kyon, do you really believe _I'm_ the shortsighted one here?"

"Just calm down a little, you two," Mikuru says, stepping up to us. "Erm, please. Maybe this isn't the best way to handle..."

Another tremor hits; caught unaware as we are thanks to the slowly building argument, the three of us nearly go pitching down the stairs. Itsuki has the grace to look a little embarrassed, though I couldn't comment on my own face without a mirror.

"Oi!" Haruhi's shout carries up the stairs, annoyed. "Are you three coming or not?"

We really have dawdled, haven't we? Haruhi and Yuki are already thirty steps or so down. Since we don't have much choice, we ought to...

Mikuru darts out a hand each to Itsuki and myself, softly striking our shoulders—and then things go a little strange. The air thickens, and feels almost like it's turned to gel. Any farther than about five feet away, it ripples like something you'd wade through rather than breathe. I can see Haruhi and Yuki down the stairs, but just barely as shapes and shadows, like they're at the bottom of a dim lake. They're not moving.

"Please try not to move around very much," Mikuru says. "This is a... time distortion effect. It works by classi... well, it's just a little pocket of space that's out of step with the normal flow of time. I... I can't keep it up for long before the bubble normalizes."

It seems Mikuru's gotten a few new permissions on her TPDD lately. So now we're openly snarling the space-time continuum for... ?

Mikuru gives me a hesitant look. "I really think we need to talk about this before things go any farther. Um, Kyon, we... we don't really know anything about what's going to be down these stairs, but we need to figure out where we stand."

"What we need to do," Itsuki comes in, "is agree that we're going to get Haruhi to stop chasing this incident, and then figure out how we're going to do it. You," he jabs a finger at me, "are far more key to this than any other member of our group, yet seem to be treating this whole thing as just one more adventurous romp. I can't even fathom what Yuki thinks she's doing, and she certainly isn't going to stop unless you can make her see reason, but at the moment that seems to be a case of the blind leading the blind!"

You know, I seem to remember Itsuki being considerably more laid back about this sort of thing, back in our first year when Haruhi whisked the two of us away to a new dimension and unknowingly threatened to recreate the world. Itsuki could barely project himself in to talk to me, but even then he found time to philosophize and mutter calmly about how the situation was somewhat regretful and all that. What's with the change?

Itsuki glared at me, eyes narrow for a moment. "Kyon, I have been a part of this group of friends for nearly three years now. Yes, I consider all of us friends, rather than just an emergency cleanup crew or an afterschool club. That was really nothing more than a convenient fiction, and it can go hang for all I care. When I was inserted by the Organization into this high school, I came to take a particular mask and play a particular role. Is it really so hard to believe that I've come to enjoy that role, to think it's worthwhile, and that I'd like it not to end in blazing fire and ice? An hour ago, I was sitting in a friend's apartment, sampling chips and salsa. Is it so hard to believe that I'd like to preserve our collective ability to sit down together and do such peaceful things?"

The old Pandora's Box notion, then. If it's closed up, it must be for a reason.

"Itsuki, wait a moment please." Mikuru sighed and turned to me. "Um, Kyon, I... think you know this, but I should say it clearly. Itsuki and I are nervous. He came here to keep Haruhi satisfied with the world to prevent its recreation. I came to find the source of the damage to the timeline, repair it if I could, and be sure it wouldn't replicate forward if I can't. These are important goals for us, and this... this..."

I nod in understanding. "This" is about all we have on the matter right now.

"Whatever it is, this is probably the worst things have gotten. We can't be sure, until we know what's really happening, but... Kyon, can you accept that Itsuki's trying his best in a bad situation?"

Panicking... isn't going to help anyone's goals, and I think he is panicking. But yes, I guess I can see why it's worth panicking over from where Itsuki stands.

What about Mikuru, I wonder?

She bites her lip while she considers her words. "My records... as I said earlier, my timeline references do have references to an event to a 'Mayan Apocalypse Event' on this day, so I know _something_ is predetermined to happen here. That's reassuring, just a tiny bit. If I had to clearly state a goal, though, I'd say... on a large scale, it's still my duty to keep the timeline healthy and make sure my future remains intact. And, on a small scale?" She blesses us with a warm smile. "I'd say that Itsuki's idea about being able to spend peaceful times together has merit. Wouldn't you say the same thing, Kyon?"

It's certainly hard to argue with that.

Mikuru nods in agreement. "Beyond being able to stay together as friends though... well, I may be reading things wrong? But is it safe to say that you want Haruhi to have a better grasp of her situation?"

I open my mouth, and then close it. That's the question, isn't it?

Itsuki has spent enough time over the years blathering on needlessly about this bond of trust (his words) that Haruhi and I share. And... there's something to that. Yes, I realize that she is not what we might call a normal human. Her powers represent an unknown. They might be dangerous. No, scratch that, they're definitely dangerous, and saying anything else is little different than a child hiding in the night muttering that there's nothing to be afraid of.

We can talk about the timeline or the Organization or data observation all we want, but the SOS Brigade's real work over all these years has been to keep Haruhi from breaking anything too badly. We've always succeeded in the end, but not always by the safest margin.

So. The power is dangerous. What do I think about that?

Well... I'm her boyfriend. That's not the point, though. The point is that when I agreed to such a thing, I only did so because the danger seemed to be past. Haruhi's powers seemed to have... evened out. They weren't a factor any more, and the five of us were mostly just a group of friends. There may have been secrets about things in the past, but those things were over and done with.

Years ago, when I first learned about all this, I tried to tell Haruhi and she brushed it off. One of my very first questions to Yuki when she first told me about being a data entity was what they'd do if I went off and told Haruhi the whole story straight away.

So why did I stop trying to let her know? Did I finally get it through my head that we were playing with fire? Did I just get comfortable in a stable situation? Did I just give up on making her understand? Was I being thoughtless when my first reflex years ago was to tell Haruhi everything? Was I being selfish when I tried to tell her the whole story? Was I being selfish when I _stopped_ trying? Haruhi's blissful life as a normal girl would come to a screaming halt if she knew these secrets about herself. Is that even my call to make?

They say that knowing another person's heart is impossible, and we can only truly know ourselves. I think they overestimated our abilities a bit.

The choice is in our hands, just the four of us. Not by any right or justice, just by default. We're the ones who know, and who have to decide what to do with that knowledge. Of course, there's one other question, more immediate and daunting than all those others put together.

What if that choice is simply taken out of our hands? With the way things are going, _something_ is going to give.

Mikuru's eyes widen. "I'm losing my grip on the distortion! We're normalizing!" She did say it came with limited use, after all. A clear, crystalline note sounds, the cloudy gel thins back into air, and just like that, our conversation has ended without me actually giving Itsuki, Mikuru, or even myself a proper answer on what my own goals are.

Mikuru takes her hands off our shoulders now that her time distortion has... done whatever... gone away, and then darts in to give each of us a quick hug. Itsuki and I... we trade nods, at least. We haven't really settled anything, not really. We were cut off mid-fight there. We'll see what happens. But, together, the three of us hurry down the stairs to catch up with Haruhi and Yuki.

* * *

OoOoO

_A/N: Yup. Still here. Honest._


End file.
